Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk speaks to reporters in Warsaw, Poland, on 9 November 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE / RADEK PIETRUSZKA
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said he believes that a ceasefire in Ukraine will be announced “in the near future”, the Ukrainian-language service of national public service broadcaster Polskie Radio reported on Saturday.
Speaking at a press conference in Warsaw, Tusk said that although he believed a peace plan being drawn up by US president-elect Donald Trump was still in its early stages, a detailed ceasefire proposal to include security guarantees for Ukraine, along with a proposed ceasefire date, would be announced soon, adding that the decisions would “certainly mean less US involvement in Ukrainian affairs.”
During the US election campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office, suggesting that his good relations with both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky would allow him to broker a peace deal that has so far eluded all other world leaders.
The Washington Post wrote in April that Trump’s peace plan would consist of pushing Ukraine to give up “Crimea and the Donbas border region” to Russia. In a September interview, Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, suggested creating a demilitarised zone along the “current line of demarcation” and providing Russia guarantees of Kyiv’s neutrality.
Bryan Lanza, a former adviser to Trump, told the BBC on Saturday that the new US administration would focus on achieving peace, rather than on returning occupied territory to Ukraine, saying that as much as he respected the Ukrainian people, the priority for the US was “peace and to stop the killing”.
However, the Trump team immediately distanced itself from Lanza’s statements, according to Reuters. “Bryan Lanza was a contractor for the campaign. He does not work for President Trump and does not speak for him,” a spokesperson for the transitional administration said.
